


The Words Falling Off Your Lips

by guilty_heroes



Series: My Fluffy Fics [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Percabeth Valentine’s, Percy reading Greek, Some angst, out loud, progression of time, to Annabeth, young Percabeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:54:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29387307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guilty_heroes/pseuds/guilty_heroes
Summary: Over the years, Percy slowly realizes why Annabeth likes to work on Greek with him.In his defense, it’s taken him about as long to become fluent in Annabeth as it has to become fluent in Greek.OR, five times Percy reads to Annabeth.A little pre-Valentine’s day special.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Series: My Fluffy Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2171787
Comments: 4
Kudos: 88





	The Words Falling Off Your Lips

**Author's Note:**

> If you really want to read this work, I’d suggest learning how Greek is pronounced. I tried to do my best to make it easily readable, how it should be pronounced, but it’s not perfect.

Percy is twelve years old and struggling with Greek. It’s just- just _frustrating_ because even though the letters don’t move as much in the Greek alphabet, they still move slightly. Maybe its just residual. Then there’s the whole learning another freaking alphabet. And there’s just way too many verb endings and the system doesn’t even make sense. To top it off, the vocab he has to learn is overwhelming and even though a Greek letter might correspond to some English letter, they make slightly different sounds. And Annabeth just isn’t helping at all.

“Honestly, Seaweed Brain, it’s not that hard. I learned this when I was seven.”

Percy doesn’t point out that her mother is the freaking goddess of wisdom and that Annabeth’s currently studying the math of particle physics because she’s bored. “It just… I can’t remember it all. It feels like English all over again.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“It does!”

“Oh yeah, then read it out to me, let’s see how ‘hard’ it really is.”

So he does. He pulls up the passage they’re working on, Chapter 16 of the Odyssey. 

“I-” Percy blushes and looks away from her. They had gotten closer on their quest, sure, and he thinks of her as his best friend, but still doesn’t feel entirely comfortable around her. Especially with Greek work, where she’s in her element and he is most decidedly not. 

“You can face down the god of War but you can’t read Homer to me?”

“We haven’t even learned Homeric! We’ve barely moved out of Attic!”

“Just read the Greek, Perseus,” she snaps, looking and sounding impatient. “Don’t translate.”

“Alright. Fine.”

“Ow-tar eh-pay r-e – rey—”

“It’s rh-ep-ee, rough breathing transitioning to a vowel always combines when we speak it.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Taking a deep breath and definitely not taking a slight glance at her, he begins again. “Rh-ep-ee neh-ah ka-tehlth-amen eh-de tha-las-san – wait, shouldn’t that be thalatta not thalassa?”

“What variant are we reading, Percy?”

“What?”

Percy doesn’t quite know how a thirteen-year-old can look as disappointed as a middle-aged adult, but Annabeth manages. “What variant are we reading?”

“Oh, um Homeric?”

“And does Homeric use the double sibilant or the double dental sound?”

“The double what?”

“Double tau or double sigma, which does Homeric use?”

“Uh, I don’t know?”

“Percy,” she growls at him, ripping the text out of his hands, “what does it say in the book?”

“It doesn’t say anything about sigils or dentists!”

“πᾶσι θεοίς ὄμνυμι, Περσεύς, ἆρα πειρᾷς με ἀποκτείνειν;”

He translates it roughly as “you idiot, I want to kill you” and knows this day is NOT going to go well. 

—Π—

Annabeth forces him to keep reading it out loud. It’s torture for them at first. Percy mispronounces either every word sorta poorly or every other word poorly. Annabeth yells at him once a sentence for being a stupid Seaweed Brain. 

He does progress though. Slowly, at first, then quickly. Something about Greek just _clicks_ and he can read it out alright. And he can translate a decent portion of some Attic texts as he reads them out, which is cool. He still has issues thinking and speaking Greek. But Annabeth doesn’t scream at him as much. In fact, she’s barely screaming at him by the time they’re both 14.

After Annabeth’s kidnapping, she pushes up their Greek sessions, having one per day with him. She tells him its because by this point, Seaweed Brain, you need to be fluent. Percy’s not sure he buys that, because the day before they leave for the Labyrinth, she asks to do one more session. 

He doesn’t know how reading Herodotus to her is going to help them on their quest, but he does it anyways.

“Hos de hora panta men ton Hellesponton hupo –”

“Hoo-po, not hupo.” A few years ago, Annabeth would have sounded condescending and annoyed. Maybe even a week ago. Now she says it rote. Maybe a bit of annoyance, but it feels… different. The memory of their hug earlier today tingles at his stomach. 

“Right, uh, so, um…” He trails off. She’s sitting on a bench in one of the reading areas the Athena kids have set up around camp. Her knees are tucked into her chest, itself covered by an extra-large blue hoodie that is just really distracting. 

“Continue from there, it’s fine, you’re just starting a prepositional phrase.”

“I know that,” he bites back, trying to pull them back to their usual bickering selves.

“Okay.” Annabeth doesn’t fight back, and it scares him. 

“Um…” Percy scratches the back of his neck, clears his throat awkwardly, and continues. “Hoopo ton neon apokekrummenon, pasas de tas aktas kai ta Abudenon pedia epiplea anthropon –”

She interrupts him again. “Elide those words.”

“But this is prose, don’t we not elide then?”

“It sounds prettier elided,” she replies, not looking at anything other than the ground. Her chin rests on her kness. Her hands play with the ends of her sleeves.

“Oh. Okay.” Percy tries to ignore just how _weird_ this is, but elides away. “Kai tabudenon pediepipleanthropon, enthauta ho Xerxes eouton emakarise, meta de toutedakruse.”

He continues, reading out Artabanus and Xerxes’ conversation to her. Annabeth just sits back against a tree and listens quietly, making the occassional comment on his reading. Percy goes to bed that night, his stomach battling contentment and a deep, building fear.

—Π—

Annabeth doesn’t ask him to work on Greek more or less at all between the Labyrinth and the end of the war. Their cold war consumes all of the best parts of their friendship and amplifies all the worst. Well, it wasn’t really a cold war. It was mostly just Percy being an idiot. He wants to bash his head against a wall because _all_ of the signs were there. Percy had just buried his head in the sand. 

But they’re happy now, talking to each other each day over FaceTime, laughing and being best friends again. Best friends plus. Because he’s dating her. And it’s Elysion. 

It’s around this time that Percy realizes _why_ Annabeth had scheduled so many of their Greek sessions. She liked hearing him read Greek to her. _Likes_ , he corrects himself. The thought makes him gushy and weird feeling inside. 

The thought comes to him, then, one day while they’re on FaceTime together. Annabeth’s talking about how her English teacher _does not_ understand _Oedipus_ _Tyrannus_. While she rambles about how her teacher is using the wrong translation of some word, Percy comes up with a brilliant idea. He’ll record himself reading her favorite sections of her favorite works. Percy decides to make it a Christmas present. 

So caught up in his idea, in her reaction to it, Percy has zoned out. Annabeth has noticed.

“Percy,” she growls, “are you even listening to me?”

“Huh? No, sorry. I was, uh, I was thinking about your Christmas present.”

“Oh?” She sounds pleasantly surprised and Percy can’t hide his smirk. _Nice Jackson_. 

“Yeah, an idea just hit me. I think you’ll like it.”

—Π—

He never gets to give her her gift. Percy never gets to complete it, either. 

“I went through your phone when you left.”

“I didn’t leave.”

“Mhmmm. But I found your Christmas present.”

Percy freezes. They’re bundled together in his cabin on the Argo II. Their hands are tangled together, too, resting over her exposed stomach. 

She raises her head, resting on his chest. “Percy, baby, I loved it.”

“What?” 

“I loved it, you idiot.”

“But it wasn’t finished!”

“What?”

“I had like fifteen scenes I wanted to read out for you. I think I only did about ten of them.”

“I didn’t even…” she kisses the center of his chest. “I loved the ten I heard.”

“You did?”

“I listened to them every night before bed, after I found them.”

“They didn’t get old?”

“They were you. They could never get old.”

––Π—

Their schedules were all messed up today. Percy hates it, because both of them have been busy all week and he wants to spend time with his Wise Girl without work hanging over their heads. But it is what it is and he’s stepping out the shower as she undresses for her bath. Her day is ending. She had schemed since Wednesday to get off of work early today, Friday, but then his work had called up and now he’s going to be late tonight.

He still takes the time to watch her as she undresses. Even after all this time, Percy continues to be awestruck by how gorgeous Annabeth is. She’s different gorgeous now. High School and College Annabeth were fighters, warriors, varsity athletes. Work Annabeth isn’t exercising to stay alive or to win races, she’s exercising for herself. It shows in her thicker thighs and ass, covered in new scars and some stretch marks. 

Percy didn’t mind one bit.

“Of course you don’t fucking mind,” one of his mortal friends had snorted as they were getting high and looking through Instagram one night. “Your girlfriend is a total fucking _thot_ , dude, why would you mind?”

Percy had punched him for that. Not hard, but he wanted to. Sure, Annabeth _is_ a thot, but only he can call her that. His mortal friend, though, had no clue why Percy was so adamant that he didn’t mind. He had no clue that Annabeth had tied her self-worth so tightly to her thin body from her teenage years. He had no clue how much Annabeth had struggled with her new body as it changed after her final track and field meet.

It’s taken her time, but now when Percy catches her staring at herself in the mirror, he can’t tell if it’s because she’s criticizing or feeling herself. 

“Like what you see, Jackson?”

“Always.”

She faux pouts. “It’s not fun when you’re a simp.”

Percy smirks, whisking the water off of his body and onto her. “That better?”

Annabeth laughs, the greatest sound in the entire world. “Of course.”

He puts on his work clothes, which is just a navy turtleneck sweater and khakis. A late meeting calls for more casual clothes. Not officially, but if his boss is going to cockblock him, Percy is going to wear whatever he fucking wants. “I should be back by eight, if we’re lucky.”

“Percy, when are we ever lucky?” She’s sitting on the side of the tub now, legs crossed, leaning forward, head on her hands, elbows on her thighs.

“Well, we better be lucky tonight. We’ve already had to cancel our big night out.”

“When have we ever gone out on a Friday?”

“Then what was that reservation at Dockside, hmm?”

“Percy! Did you cancel our date for tomorrow?”

“Shit, that was for tomorrow?”

“You fucking – I waited months for a reservation!”

“Uh… we can wait a few more months?”

“Are you fucking with me, Jackson?”

“Unfortunately, your legs are closed.”

“Percy.”

“Yeah, yeah I didn’t touch the reservations.”

“You’re such a dick.”

“Only a foot of me is.”

“You’ve got a microdick.”

“Sure.”

She smiles first, which means they’re at Annabeth 1,467 and Percy 1,309. “You dork. You look like a nerd in your sweater.”

“You don’t talk back as much when I tie you down.”

“Maybe you should then.”

“Mmmm, I’m thinking about it.”

She bites her bottom lip. Percy walks over to her. She’s grown from that girl at fourteen, holding her arms out to him, begging for a hug. But Annabeth’s still delicate to him, like she’ll always be. Not because she’s weak. But because she’s priceless to him. 

Percy reaches down, cupping her chin with one hand. “I’ve got some time.”

“You don’t.”

“Don’t interrupt.” She gives him a flutter of her eyelashes and his pants start to get uncomfortable. “How about you hop in your bath and I’ll read to you a bit before I go?”

Her eyes light up as her head drops into his hand. “Please?”

He brushes a thumb over her bottom lip. “Of course, princess.”

He comes back not a few moments later with brown paper package in his hands. Annabeth’s slipped into the bath he’s keeping at the perfect temperature for her. The back of her hair is wet, but the rest of it keeps its thick curls. “I was going to give this to you tonight, but I think you can open it now.”

“Thank you, Percy.” Her smile is soft. He knows how tired she’s been lately. She traded athletics for work. Much to their bank accounts benefit, though they both don’t worry too much about money. 

Percy pulls up a stool, sitting down right next to her. She reaches out but its not for the package. Her hands tugs on one of Percy’s forearms, which she uses as a pillow. Percy’s heart sputters out, caught between stopping and going a thousand miles per hour.

“You don’t want to open it?”

She shakes her head.

So Percy opens it for her. It’s a small book, one he had seen in the window of the small used bookstore he frequented. The owner, an older man named Martin, was always happy to serve Percy’s interest in old Classics works. Percy returned the man’s kindness with a steady patronage. Including today, when he had seen a beautiful old version of Plato’s Symposion. One of Annabeth’s favorite passages was Aristophanes’ speech. She said it was because of the intellectual debate surrounding it, but Percy knows it's because Annabeth’s a secret romantic.

“Percy…” her voice trails off. Her finger grazes the spine. “It’s so pretty. Did Martin pick this out? Or you?”

“I think we both did.”

“So are you going to read it out to me or what, Seaweed Brain?”

“Quit being a brat.”

“Make me.”

Percy rolls his eyes. Why did his manager call them all in this late? Annabeth made leaving so hard. “Fine.” He tugs away his arm. Immediately, Annabeth wines and pulls it back. 

“Okay, okay.” She rests her cheek again on his forearm and looks up at him with a look he now knows is pure love. 

Careful not to tear any pages, Percy begins.

“Kai men, o Eruximache, alley ge pen necho legein ei hei su te kai Pausanias, eipeten. Emoi gar dokousin anthropoi pantapasi ten tou erotos dunamin ouk eisthesthai, epaisthanomenoi ge megist’ an autou iera kataskeuasai kai bomous, kai thusias an poiein megistas, ouchosper noon…” he continues.

Percy elides and adds emphasis on new sentences and new clauses, pauses longer before commas and punctuation, doing everything he knows she loves. And, while Percy reads, he watches her slowly drift off. She’s not sleeping. Just savoring the moment, like he is. The feeling of her on his arm is like nirvana. Percy loves this. Reading to her, letting her lose herself in whatever her beautiful brain wants to lose itself in. It’s hard to believe that, years ago, they were stuck in the depths of hell, losing all faith in a happy ending.

Nothing’s ending now, but Percy is sure he’s never been this content in his life.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I’m going to publish something for Valentine’s Day Actual, hopefully. But for now, here’s this. 
> 
> I hope y’all enjoyed!


End file.
